Boris F. Borzin

Boris Fedorovich Borzin (1923 - 1991) was a Ukrainian-born painter, graphic artist, art historian, conservator, and writer. He graduated with distinction from the Lithuanian State Art Institute (his diploma work being exhibited at the national exhibition of students' diploma works in Moscow). He later attended the department of Improvement of Professional Skills of the Moscow Stroganov Art School, and a did his post-graduate studies at the Institute of the Academy of Arts of St. Petersburg. In 1969 he received a PhD (Candidate Degree) in Art History and Pedagogy.

 

Boris Borzin was a member of the Union of Soviet Artists, taking part in numerous art exhibitions in St. Petersburg, Moscow and abroad (Japan, Finland, Great Britain, France, Spain, Sweden) where a number of his works were acquired by the Arts and Culture Fund of USSR, museums, and private collectors. He participated in over 50 exhibitions, in almost all "Our Contemporary " exhibitions, organized in the Russian Museum; in the Central Exhibition Hall, at the premises of the Petersburg Union of Artists, as well as in such exhibitions as "Russian Landscape" and "50 years of Soviet Power" and in many other regional, republican and national art exhibitions. Throughout his artistic career, some of Boris's colleagues turned to the contemporary artistic movements of the time, but Boris Borzin always remained true to the best traditions of Russian realism school. 

 

During the Great Patriotic war (WWII), Boris served in the Field Forces and marched with his military unit from Stalingrad to Berlin. Being on the front lines moved the artist to paint many genre paintings later in life, and he sketched his military friends throughout the war. Well-known are his triptych "Leningrad. Lines of Glorious Combat", and his graphic portraits of war veterans (bought by the Arts and Culture Fund of USSR). After the war, for eight years, Boris Borzin lead and participated in the restoration of murals and celling paintings of a number of architectural monuments in St. Petersburg and its suburbs (The Hermitage, Monplaisir in Peterhof, Yelagin Palace, St. Isaak's Cathedral , Summer Palace, and many others). During this work he made a thorough study of icons, fresco paintings, and archiving techniques and wrote a book "Decorative art of the time of Peter the Great" on the subject, which merited wide recognition. Boris was awarded in 1987 the silver medal of the Academy of Arts. For over 30 years Borzin taught fine art at the Petersburg State Pedagogical University. He was deeply interested in the problem of artistic pedagogy, which found reflection in a number of  his publications on this topic.

 

Borzin's series of landscape paintings titled "Along the Green Belt of Russia", "Near the Asov Sea", "In Caucus Mountains" as well as those depicting St. Petersburg and its suburbs stand out for their high professional skill and fine lyricism. Several of the artist's latter works were purchased by and donated to the administration of Peterhof palace and parks, The Benois Family Museum, The Museum of the History of St. Petersburg and The State Russian Museum. 

 

In 1991, after his death, two personal exhibitions of Borzin's paintings and graphic works took place in St. Petersburg in Rossi Pavillion of the Summer Gardens, and in the Benois Family Museum in Peterhof. In 1992 two more personal exhibition of the artist's works took place in St. Petersburg, one of which was his portraits of musicians in the Philharmonic Hall.